I’ve noticed with increasing frequency that many new hour-long dramas have a gimmick much like what gave sitcoms their name. Is this an old phenomenon that I’ve only just realized?
I just saw a preview for a NY City cop show, but only this time the cop’s really a 400-year-old immortal of some sort.
Well, situation comedies got their name because they had recurring characters in the same situation, so in that sense, most dramatic television has been that way for a while. But if you’re looking for dramas with gimmicks, that’s not new.
Considering that this is at least the third TV show to have a variation on this theme (“vampire fights crime in the big city” was previously done as Forever Knight and Angel) I don’t think it’s particularly new.
Even the idea of immortal detectives aren’t new. See for instance, two shows with vampire detectives…Forever Knight and Angel.
I swear, man, we share a brain sometimes.
Does that mean I can blame you when I forget to pay my phone bill?
Does** Psych **count as a drama? Or Baywatch?
I really don’t understand this question. Every single drama that’s ever been on the air has a gimmick. Otherwise it would never have gotten on the air.
No show is ever just a cop shop or a medical show. Cop show about forensic cops is a gimmick. Cop show about a cop who imagines the victims talking to him is a gimmick. Medical show about hot interns having the hots for one another is a gimmick. “Gimmick” is more usually known as a “hook”, though.
Every show that’s ever been on television has a hook. That’s how it’s pitched and how people describe it in meetings.
It’s better to have a good hook than a good show, too. Easier to pitch. 
Perhaps it’s just a combination of these gimmicks becoming more and more silly, and me not watching hour-long TV dramas. (I watch hour-long TV comic book shows like Heroes and Prison Break.)
Aren’t Heroes and Prison Break dramas?
Not sure about Psych, but I believe Baywatch would fall under situation breasts.
If Heroes was a drama, it was the lamest drama of all time. Any venture into the dramatic was smothered in cheese.
Mmmm… cheese.
While Psych just features a couple of boobs.